Donald Trump, husband of the year, said at a rally on Wednesday that he hasn’t read Melania Trump’s soon-to-be released memoir because he has too many other pressing things to deal with. “Go out and get her book,” the ex-president nevertheless told supporters during a rally in New York. “She just wrote a book. I hope she said good things about—I don’t know, I didn’t, so busy. She just wrote a book called Melania. Go out and buy it. It’s great. And if she says bad things about me, I’ll call you all up and I’ll say, ‘Don’t buy it. Get rid of it.’”
The former president may not have had room in his schedule to thumb through his wife’s memoir—despite the fact that he’s holding fewer campaign events than ever, and does manage to regularly fit in a round of golf—but he and the rest of the world have been given hints about the topics the former first lady addresses, thanks to a series of recently released and deeply strange book-promo videos.
In one put out yesterday, Melania Trump asks, “Why do I stand proudly behind my nude modeling work?” And then answers, “The more pressing question is, why has the media chosen to scrutinize the celebration of the human form in a fashion photo shoot? Are we no longer able to appreciate the beauty of the human body? Throughout history, master artists have revered the human shape, evoking profound emotions and admiration. We should honor our bodies and embrace the timeless tradition of using art as a powerful means of self-expression.”
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As The New York Times notes, going after the media re: her decades-old nude-modeling work was a bit of a head-scratching choice, given Melania’s “career as a model has not been the subject of broad news coverage since the 2016 presidential race.” Also a choice: to put her nude photo shoot—which appeared in British GQ in 2000 and featured clothes-less photos of her aboard her husband’s “customised Boeing 727 wearing handcuffs, wielding diamonds and holding a chrome pistol”—in the same category as works like John Collier’s Lady Godiva and Michelangelo’s David. (Trump does not mention the fact that zealous Republicans have been responsible for, among other things, a teacher being forced to resign in Florida for showing students a picture of the famous sculpture by Michelangelo.)
Anyway! In another video, the former first lady asks, of the July assassination attempt on her husband, “Why didn’t law enforcement officials arrest the shooter before the speech?” Adding, “there is definitely more to this story, and we need to uncover the truth.”
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And in another, images of the Constitution flash on the screen while Trump highlights the Fourth Amendment—which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures—and then says, “I never imagined my privacy would be invaded by the government here, in America,” referring to the 2022 FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago. She does not add the context that the FBI was there because her husband had allegedly taken and refused to return classified documents, and that the government had a warrant to search the place.
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Elsewhere, we learn that, in the former first lady’s mind, the results of the 2020 election “changed our lives” not because her husband inspired a violent mob to attack the Capitol in an attempt to stay in power, but because it “impact[ed] our quality of life, cost of food, gasoline, safety, and even the geopolitical landscape.” Oh, and also that it’s led to efforts to “silence” her husband.
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Finally, we find out that the lessons Melania has learned from being a mother are “profound” and “shaped me in ways I could never have imagined.” (Is this somehow a tacit endorsement of JD Vance’s claims re: “childless cat ladies”? Unclear!)
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So far, there is no indication as to whether the first lady’s book addresses the hush money deal her husband made with a porn star in 2016, though perhaps that is what he’s worried about when he says she may have written “bad things” about him.
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The post Trump Says He’s Been Too “Busy” to Read Melania’s Forthcoming Memoir, in Which She Attacks the FBI, Questions the Secret Service, and Defends Her Nude Modeling Work appeared first on Vanity Fair.
